


all was lost but that the heavens fought

by remi_wolf



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (except it's byleth. so.), Angst, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Gen, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male My Unit | Byleth, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Pining, Post-Battle of Garreg Mach, Presumed Dead, Search and Rescue, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, especially when you can't search forever, how do you find one person in a massive battlefield, look. the problem with battles is the bodies left afterwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_wolf/pseuds/remi_wolf
Summary: Teach still hasn't returned from the battlefield. They haven't returned, and that's not right. Claude knows that they're alive still. They have to be alive, no matter what anyone's telling him. Even if they need to evacuate the monastery, he doesn't want to leave in case Teach comes back, even if everyone around's him convincing him otherwise.Whumptober 2020: Day 28. Alternate Prompt 11: Presumed Dead.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 6
Collections: Beguilements and Distractions, Remi's Whumptober Collection for 2020, Whumptober 2020





	all was lost but that the heavens fought

Claude sighed softly as he practically collapsed onto the ground. The Empire troops had retreated once the dragon had disappeared from the battleground, and while he was certain that they’d return to finish the job if anyone lingered after a few weeks—after all, the Emperor had said as much—but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t relax and catch their breath for a little while. 

“Claude, we’ve got some news.” 

Claude looked up at Ignatz, frowning for a moment before motioning for him to continue. He couldn’t quite manage to ask him to continue, and Ignatz sighed softly as he glanced over at Raphael next to him. 

“We can’t find the professor.”

“Yeah. We looked all over the place, and it’s like they didn’t exist at all.” Raph looked uneasy at the comment, and he shifted, glancing down at the helm in his hands before shrugging. “We don’t know what else to do.”

That wasn’t a good thing, but that didn’t mean anything. The battlefield had been messy and massive, even beyond the incursions they had to fight off closer to the Monastery, and he knew that Teach had gone off closer to the bulk of the fighting, but he wasn’t sure. “I’ll track down Hilda. We’ll head off to try and search for them on wyvern-back. Talk to Ingrid, and Cyril. Basically all of the flyers. We’ll canvas the battlefield. We’ve got to find them. They wear white, it can’t be that hard to find them.” Claude took a deep breath as he looked at Ignatz and Raphael before frowning and finally pulling himself to his feet. It would be fine. He’d be fine. Teach was probably just exhausted and unable to bring themselves to get back to the Monastery. That was all. 

At least Ignatz and Raphael ran off to track down the others, and Claude ran off towards tracking down others for search parties. He needed all the help he could get, and Goddess knows, they needed to track down all of the people they could, if only to get them back to their families. 

“Claude! This is ridiculous! I’m  _ tired _ , can we please go back and call it a night?” Hilda’s voice was a whine over the wind picking up, and Claude sighed softly as he looked over at her. 

“Teach is still out here. We got to find them. They’re going to be exhausted and cold if we don’t get them back home soon.” Claude frowned as he looked back down at the ground, even if it was growing more and more difficult to see much beyond vague shapes, let alone the difference between what were monk robes and what was Teach. 

He looked over at Hilda, at the look of concern on her face, before he spurred his wyvern to continue. It wouldn’t be too much longer. He’d find Teach soon. He had to find Teach soon. There wasn’t much left to the battle field, and he’d even try to search the canyon at the edge of the Monastery grounds. 

“No, Claude. I think you need to go back. The professor can take care of themselves. You need to help us figure out how to evacuate the rest of the church and get everyone somewhere safe. You’re basically in charge now, especially since we can’t find Rhea either and Seteth’s a mess because of that.”

Claude took a deep breath, standing up in his saddle as his hand tightened around his bow, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn’t just leave the professor to fend for themselves. They had lost their father, and now they’ve lost their makeshift home and whatever answers all of that would have given them about their past. There wasn’t any possible way for him to not abandon Teach without that guilt gnawing at him, not until he had finished his search for them.

“Claude! I  _ will _ throw an axe at you if you don’t come back this instant.”

“Fine!” Claude glared over at Hilda. He didn’t want to stop. Someone needed to search for people, but...it was getting dark. It was dark, and they were going to have a hard enough time to fly back to the monastery, even without trying to look for people on the way. Claude sighed, relaxing in the saddle before shifting and leading the wyvern away from the edge of the battlefield. “Fine. Let’s get back. I’ll start with the plans to get everyone to Derdriu and the Eastern Church. We should be able to manage that. Goddess knows that the Kingdom can’t do much with Dimitri in the state he’s in.”

Hilda relaxed, nodding slightly as she watched Claude start to turn and fly towards the monastery once more. He hated it, and he didn’t like it, and he felt like he was abandoning the professor to this fate. Hilda’s mindless chatter wasn’t even enough to get him to feel better about this, and he took a deep breath. He wanted to find Teach. He really wanted to find them. But Hilda was still right, and he had other duties he needed to attend to, even if he didn’t want to. He took a deep breath, feeling the wyvern breathe and fly beneath him, with the hills and crags and scars of the battle underneath the four of them. 

“Do you think we’ll find them?”

He glanced over at Hilda, watching as she ducked her head, before glancing away as well. That was as much of an answer that he needed. No. Hilda didn’t think they’d find the professor at all. Honestly, he doubted that anyone thought they would. The professor was yet another of the anonymous casualties that would be left to the world when they ran away. They didn’t have nearly the time to bury all of them, or even burn them, as much as that would be proper. 

“We need to leave, Claude. There’s one last caravan going out, and we’ll need you to help guard them on their way to the capital.” 

Claude looked up as he saw Lorenz standing in the doorway of the stables. He huffed an annoyed breath, shaking his head quickly as he adjusted the gloves on his hands. “I’m going to look for Teach again. We haven’t been able to find them yet.”

“And you have your duties as a noble, Claude. As the de facto leader of the Alliance here. They need you here as the next in line of the Riegan dukedom.” 

“I’ll catch up later. You’ll be able to take care of them until I catch up.” Claude took a deep breath before grabbing the saddle for his wyvern and moved to push past Lorenz, only to get stopped as the other blocked the door with an arm. Claude glanced at Lorenz before shifting to push past him again, only to end up with his breath leaving in a huff and a pain in his stomach. He looked up, frowning at how Lorenz barely even seemed to move at all, even if his foot had ended up in Claude’s stomach.

“You’re going to accompany the caravan, Claude.”

“I’m going to catch up to them!” 

Lorenz huffed, shaking his head before crossing his arms as he kept himself in the doorway. “A year studying with you, and I thought you cared about your people. The professor is likely dead. You need to accept that. Go with the last caravan, especially as I’ll be breaking off to join the Bridge of Myrddin at my father’s request.”

Claude looked at Lorenz, biting his lip as he thought about it. Of course he knew that it was most likely that the professor was dead. Of course he knew that Byleth was dead, and the only time he had been able to dance with them was at the one ball. He didn’t even get a chance to tell them that he was from Almyra at all. He didn’t want to admit to himself and everyone else that they were most likely dead.

“You need to accept that. You have a responsibility. I’m sure your grandfather’s going to have you lead the war against the Empire. You’re..." Lorenz frowned before reaching a hand out to Claude, offering to help him up. “You’re a good man, and a good leader. Don’t hurt yourself more like this.”

Claude sighed as he took Lorenz’s hand, squeezing it tight before nodding as he pulled himself to his feet. “Fine. Let’s get that last caravan out of here. The sooner we leave, the better,” he murmured softly before finally pushing past Lorenz to get his wyvern ready to ride to Derdriu with the caravan.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully you all enjoyed that! Thanks for reading. I'm always fond of writing Claude, it seems. Anyways, comments are always welcome! Thanks again for your time!


End file.
